Cyberpunk: 2075.

Chapter 654, Section 68: The White-nosed Eagle

In Li De's memory, there weren't many people wearing federal special forces uniforms but not the new American insignia.

Special forces often need to conceal their identities when carrying out black operations—removing badges, erasing insignia, and using anonymous equipment are standard procedures. But these people are doing the opposite: they are not only wearing the uniforms of the new U.S. special forces, but also wearing badges, practically engraving the mark of their new American identity in the eyes of everyone who sees them.

If they weren't capable of eliminating everyone they encountered, there could only be one reason for their elaborate attire.

That is, they don't need to hide their identities; they represent the legitimate military power of the new America.

Li De's gaze was fixed on the badge.

On the dark silver background, a bony eagle claw protruded, its tip digging deeply into the central Stars and Stripes emblem—a flag he knew all too well, the fifteen-star flag adopted after the split of the new America, now tattered. Two tear marks ran diagonally across the flag, gouging out two stars, leaving only thirteen stars faintly shimmering between the claw's edges.

Eagle claws seize the flag.

This imagery resembles a sudden, powerful punch to the stomach.

A faded history textbook illustration suddenly flashed into my mind: the national flag from over three hundred years ago had only thirteen stars.

The word 'white noisy eagle' flashed through his mind.

The bold black headings in the classified files suddenly became tangible—the records that had been filed as 'obsolete data' were actually real.

This extremist faction, nurtured by military technology, reportedly requires a vote from the National Defense Committee before the president can even deploy them. They openly claim to "prune the historical clutter" and purify the country back to its original thirteen-state map, as if the subsequent expansion of thirty-seven states was merely white noise that needed to be eliminated.
Li De's knuckles unconsciously pressed against the holster between his ribs. Now he understood why all the names of those who knew about the incident in the file were blacked out as rectangular blocks, just like the two stars that disappeared from that flag.

This team—according to official records, should have been completely disbanded back during President Elizabeth Kress's administration, or at least, all the intelligence he had access to claimed so.

But now it seems that the 'White Hawk' has not only not disappeared, but has quietly grown in the shadows, even infiltrating the shadows that the Joint Intelligence Bureau has not noticed. If he had not glimpsed the relevant records in a file that had long been marked as [abandoned/destroyed], he probably would not have been able to identify them at this moment.

Why would a faction so extreme as to view all of Rosalind Myers' expansionist policies as 'tainting the Thirteen States' appear here?
Just as he was intently observing, the tall man in front of the control panel suddenly looked up, his gray-blue eyes scanning the ventilation ducts like radar—as if some predator had caught a faint scent of blood in the air.

Li De froze instantly.

Breathing stopped, heart rate dropped to 30 beats per minute—this is the 'feigned death state' in special agent training. He once used this trick to fool the inspection and crawl back from a pile of corpses.

The man's gaze swept across every corner of the cabin like a blade, and the metal walls exuded a chill in the silence. A few seconds later, seemingly oblivious to anything amiss, he slowly lowered his head. At the same moment, the woman in uniform beside him pressed the final button.

"System permissions confirmed."

The main screen suddenly lit up, and a blood-red halo splashed onto everyone's faces.

"Energy overload protocol loaded." The cold, mechanical voice announced: "Trigger conditions set to—"

The mechanical sounds were interrupted halfway through by a piercing alarm.

Li De's terminal suddenly vibrated in his pocket, emitting encrypted frequency noise powerful enough to penetrate steel plates. 'Something's wrong!'

The instant his fingertip touched the terminal screen, the cool touch suddenly turned into a burning pain—his biometric authentication had been forcibly overwritten. His quantum encryption protocol was crumbling, and firewall logs were tumbling across the retinal projection like corpses torn apart by a wild beast. The smooth, effortless cracking was as if—no, it was as if his encryption permissions had been one-way transparent to the other party from the very beginning!
Even the equipment has been compromised!
Li De was extremely shocked, but he had already been exposed.

"Ventilation duct!" The tall man instantly drew his gun, and the bullet whistled through the blinds.

Just before the bullet pierced the blinds, Li De had already curled up and rolled over. The scorching bullet grazed the back of his neck, carving a molten, crimson groove into the metal tube wall.

He took out a dagger with his right hand and pinned it to the pipe. Using the momentum of his roll, he swung out of the blind spot, while simultaneously ejecting a stun grenade from his left wrist, and fell towards the control room.

"boom!"

The explosion, accompanied by a blinding flash of light, filled the control room. The woman in uniform had just reached for the technical pistol at her waist when a blinding flash of white light appeared on her retina. As she staggered backward, Li De's figure was emerging from the ventilation duct crack, his clothes still covered with metal shavings scorched by the bullets.

The tall man, however, seemed unaffected.

His face, clad in sunglasses, turned slightly to the side, accurately predicting Li De's landing location. The modified kinetic pistol roared again, firing three bullets in a triangular pattern to block his movement.

In the instant Li De pushed off the wall to change direction, the last bullet still tore open his right shoulder, and blood beads drew a dazzling arc in the smoke, like a string of broken red coral.

A sharp pain exploded from his shoulder blade. He used the momentum of his dive to fling the tactical knife from the outside of his thigh into his palm. When the tall man pulled the trigger for the fourth time, the bullet collided head-on with the spinning blade—in the shrill sound of metal tearing apart, the split bullet sparked two streaks, while the knife, still full of momentum, continued to lunge towards the enemy's throat.

Just as the knife tip was about to pierce the skin, the tall man's outline suddenly contorted.

'Seanwistan!' Li De's pupils contracted sharply, and his own prosthetic body also went overclock at the same time. Before the afterimage on his retina had dissipated, the thermite had exploded at the predicted trajectory point.

The expanding fireball engulfed the advancing figure, but Li De had already used the cover of the blazing white light screen to spin and launch a flying kick.

The sharp blade that popped out from the boot tip, like a viper's tongue, precisely pierced the heart of the woman in front of the control panel. As the smell of burnt leather filled the air, the tall man staggered out of the flames, his facial armor melting into liquid metal dripping down.

The other four members of 'White Hawk' had also reacted. They raised their guns and subconsciously prepared to fire directly at the possible location, but were stopped by their captain, a tall man, just before they pulled the trigger.

"Don't shoot! This position is overloaded, we'll all die, and the plan will fail!"

By the time the tall man drew his close-combat tactical knife, Li De had already temporarily distanced himself from them.

There are five more.

Li De's blood-stained face was exceptionally cold.

(End of this chapter)